RASCAL (Research & Special Collections Available Locally)

RASCAL is an electronic gateway to research resources relating to Ireland. The site can be used to search or browse information about a wide range of research and special collections held in libraries, museums and archives in Ireland and abroad.

Access to early printed books

The full text of the majority of books published in English before 1800 are available on Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) lists most books published in this period.

Reference books dealing with early printed and rare books are also available in the Special Collections & Archives Reading Room.

Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 - from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War.

ECCO contains the full-text of every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom between the years 1701 and 1800 – 135,000 printed works comprising more than 26 million scanned facsimile pages.

he English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) lists over 460,000 items published between 1473 and 1800 mainly, but not exclusively, in English. Works contained are published mainly in the British Isles and North America, and are from the collections of the British Library and over 2,000 other libraries